This invention relates in general to mobile communication systems, and more particularly to mobile communication systems in which parameters, used by the mobile station to call other parties, may change by virtue of geographic location or time of day, or both.
Mobile communication systems have gained immense popularity in recent years, and have proven to very useful in facilitating communication between and among parties. There are a wide variety of reasons why people subscribe to mobile communication services, including, for example, convenience, in case of emergencies, and for business users to maintain contact when traveling. Indeed, mobile communication service is increasing in popularity as the cost of service decreases, and is increasingly viewed as a necessity.
One application of mobile communication that is well established is fleet and dispatch communication in large organizations. These organizations may be either public or private organizations. In many such organizations individuals are assigned communication devices. Since the cost of communication equipment has decreased so much in recent years, it is often the case that such assignments are permanent, meaning a specific individual keeps the communication device at all times, whether they are working or not. Many business organizations, for example, have given sales personnel cellular telephones. The same is true in many other fields as well. For example, is becoming routine in large business organizations for employees to use mobile communication devices to be able to contact, and perhaps more importantly, to be contacted, as conveniently as possible.
Mobile communication devices are routinely designed to store frequently called numbers, channel lists, and frequency lists. Some of these are user programmable, such as so called xe2x80x9cspeed dialxe2x80x9d numbers. Usually these are associated with an alias so that a user can program in a name to be associated with the number for easy recognition. However, these type of parameters, generically referred to a personality parameters, are fixed. That is, once a user programs a number into the communication device and associates it with an alias, the communication device is bound to using that number. If the user knows, for example, that there are 5 different sales associates that could be on call at any given time, it is up to the user of the communication device to know, or have programmed, the number into the mobile station, and then make a determination as to which associate is presently on duty. The problem is worse if the user travels to an unfamiliar region, and does not know any of the local numbers.
The problem briefly illustrated above can be expanded to many other types of use. For example, in large manufacturing facilities there will often be several shifts during a given day, with several people taking charge of various operations at different times of day and week. If someone needs to communicate with the manager on duty in a particular department, they have to both know who the present manager on duty is, and have the manager""s number, or else they will have to try a more conventional form of communication, such as a wire line telephone. However, the trend in large organizations is to provide certain employees with mobile communication devices so they will not miss important calls.
A similar situation exists with respect to geographic regions. Presently, whenever a mobile user enters a new region and desires to call the local office of a company or franchise, the user must either call directory assistance or locate the correct number in a local directory, assuming the number is published. This is a cumbersome process given the ease and speed with which modern information systems can provide the same type of information.
It would be more convenient if, instead of having the user remember or store all the various numbers into a mobile communication device, the communication system could instead provide the desired numbers according to the time of day or the geographic region, or both.